Women's Pathological Narcissism and its Relationship with Social Appearance Anxiety: The Mediating Role of Body Shame.

Abstract

ObjectiveAttention to personal appearance and observers’ judgments are integral components of narcissism. However, empirical evidence focused on the association between grandiose/vulnerable traits of narcissism and social appearance anxieties is limited. Moreover, body shame represents a topic of debated interest in the field of narcissism and women’s experience of self-consciousness. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the unexplored relationship between covert and overt facets of pathological narcissism and social appearance anxiety, analyzing the mediating role of objectified body shame.MethodPathological vulnerable and grandiose narcissism, social appearance anxiety and body shame were assessed in a convenience sample of 775 young women (M=24.1, SD=4.52).ResultsBody shame fully mediated the association between pathological narcissism and social appearance anxiety, especially for vulnerable narcissists’ women.ConclusionsAs expected, vulnerable narcissism had a positive association with social appearance anxieties, and body shame acted as a mediating risky factor. Moreover, as hypothesized and differently from recent findings, also overt narcissism was related to body shame and appearance anxieties. These findings suggest that feelings of shame are essential to deeper understand the narcissistic core features and outcomes. Research and clinical implications are discussed.